Hackensack NJ, New Jersey is home to about 900,000 residents who are not United States citizens . That’ equals about 1 in 10 people in the state, according to most recent estimates. Census figures put Ridgewood’s non-citizen population at about 2,000, or approximately 8 percent of the village’s 25,500 residents.

The Ridgewood Public Library even hosts six-week program meets twice weekly for 90-minute classes. It uses the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services booklet “Learn About the United States, Quick Civic Lessons for the Naturalization Test.”

The federal government is planning to have the 2020 Census ask people their citizenship status. Many elected officials and community advocates say such a question could threaten federal funding for states like New Jersey.

The simple solution would be to create more US citizens in order to safe guard Federal Funds .

The next Census Day is set for April 1, 2020, and a 2017 release from the U.S. Census Bureau identified the date for wording of all Census questions to be submitted to Congress as March 31 of this year. So for those fighting for a question on citizenship status to be excluded, the clock has been ticking for months already.

To give you an idea of the magnitude of the issue the Ridgewood blog has listed the towns the have the largest concentration of Non-citizens in Bergen County .